. . . . . . . . .
On a certain Saturday morning the mail steamer arrived from the east, bearing such passengers for Fremantle and Perth as desired to behold the world-famed goldfields of which they had heard so much.
Newspapers from Europe and America were then attainable. What long, luxurious Sunday morning lounges for the happy possessors of the latest news did these precious ‘home papers’ and letters represent! The younger son, roughly garbed, toil-worn, it may well be ragged even, smiled in his abundant beard as the post-mark of the village near the ancestral hall met his eager eyes. What tidings would the closely guarded sheets furnish? The death of the ailing sister—of the fond mother, the aged father, to whom he had vowed, with the careless confidence of youth, to return laden with gold, or bearing in other [174] ]form the imprint of success and distinction. How he rejoiced audibly to find that all was well! The Squire, hearty and hale, as of old—looking forward to the hunting season, or the annual ‘shoot’ over his preserves, with unabated confidence; the younger brother had taken his degree at Oxford, or Cambridge, and was safe for a curacy—there was a living in the family.
‘Thank God! Nothing wrong this time. Perhaps this time next year I may see my way.’ Then comes the sigh of hope deferred. Besides newspapers came people. Not so many as in the earlier days of the rich yields and the big ‘rushes.’ Mining, of course, not so sensational. Up-to-date appliances, improved machinery, with a steadier monthly output, and so on.
A close watch was, however, kept on the passenger list, as there was no knowing who might not turn up, or from whence. The men working now in the big mines as metallurgists, ‘shift bosses,’ or mine managers, chiefly well-born, often highly cultured and gently nurtured, had travelled far amid the older lands and cities,—historically famous,—as well as amid these newly found desert wastes: this arid, solitary, trackless wilderness so recently exploited by civilised man, with his absorbing needs. When, therefore, Gore Chesterfield threw down the paper containing the passenger list of the P. & O. liner Aden, with an exclamation denoting surprise and satisfaction, the deduction was easy that a comrade of earlier years had arrived, with whom it would be a relief and a luxury to exchange confidences. ‘By Jove!’ [175] ]he exclaimed, ‘this is a rum start!—who would ever have thought of Lytton Carteret of Guy’s, of all people in the world, turning up here? Why, he was with me in that expedition of Herman Paul’s on the pre-Phœnician “placers,”
worrying through the ruins left by these rum chaps. Did they find gold? Yes, and plenty of it, judging by what we saw. But they went about it in a scientific manner—not like our burrowings and scratchings, living under canvas, and roasting our souls and bodies under canvas—like lunatics, as Eastern people consider all Englishmen to be.’
‘Well, what did they do that gave them such a “break” over us?’ inquired his Australian-born mate, belonging to a pioneer family founded by a retired military officer who had fought under Wellington through the long blood-stained Peninsular War from Ciudad Rodrigo to Waterloo, and who had turned his sword into a ploughshare after marrying one of the daughters of the land.
‘Do? What we don’t seem to manage so well in these latter days of civilisation about which we brag so unnecessarily. Built walled cities, or something near akin; put pressure on the Kaffirs and Zulus, tribesmen of the day (of course not these very fellows); but they made them work, whoever they were. First of all, built stone forts, inside which they could defy the heathen artillery of the period, cross-bows and arrows, with lances, maces, javelins, and so forth, for close fighting. They had pots and crucibles, smelted ore, and the rest of it. Oh! they were pretty well up to date, I can tell you.’
[176]
]‘Sounds well,’ said his comrade, who was scientific as well as practical—had taken two firsts, and two second scholarships at an Australian University for Civil Engineering. ‘Why did you and he come away from such a jolly interesting place?’
‘H—m! the death-rate was high, water bad, climate awful, steamy and airless; besides, to tell the truth, I suspected the working director of looking upon us much as Bismarck did the rank and file of the Prussian army—not perhaps exactly as “Kanonenfutter,” but to be expended (“gastados,” as the Spanish idiom is) primarily in the cause of science, chiefly for the glorification and renown of Sigismund Paulsen, botanist, member of the Society of Explorers, etc. etc.; you can’t beat a German leader for that. He is everything and everybody; the rest are nothing and nobody. So Carteret and I cleared.’